CommodoreSir George Ralph
Collier, with the 36-gun HMS Creole as his
flagship, was the first Commodore of the West Africa Squadron. On
September 19, 1818, the Navy sent him to the Gulf of Guinea
with the orders, “You are to use every means in your power to
prevent a continuance of the traffic in slaves.”[3]
However, he had only six ships with which to patrol over 3000 miles
of coast. He served from 1818 to 1821.

In 1819, the Royal Navy created a naval station in West Africa
at a captured slaving port that the British renamed Freetown. This would become
the capital of the first British colony in Africa, Sierra Leone. Most of
the slaves the squadron freed would choose to settle in Sierra
Leone as they would not have to fear being re-enslaved, a danger in
any other part of Africa.[1
] From 1821, the squadron also used Ascension
Island as a supply depot,[4]
before this moved to Cape
Town in 1832.[5]

As the Royal Navy began interdicting slavers, the slavers
responded by abandoning their merchant ships in favour of faster
ships, particularly Baltimore Clippers. At first, the
Royal Navy was often unable to catch these ships, however with the
capture of slaver clippers and new faster ships from Britain the
Royal Navy regained the upper hand. One of the most successful
ships of the West Africa Squadron was one such captured ship,
renamed HMS Black Joke. She
successfully caught 11 slavers in one year.

Until 1835, the Royal Navy was only allowed to take slavers that
actually had slaves aboard. This meant the Squadron could not
interfere with vessels clearly equipped for the trade but without a
cargo. It also gave slavers being pursued an incentive to throw
their slaves overboard before capture to avoid the seizure of the
vessel.

By the 1840s, the West African Squadron had begun receiving paddle steamers,
which proved superior in many ways to the sailing ships they
replaced. The steamers were independent of the wind and their
shallow draughts
meant they could go patrol the shallow shores and up rivers.

The Royal Navy considered the West Africa Station one of the
worst postings due to the high levels of tropical
disease, however this did provide the Royal Navy surgeons the
experience they would use to effectively fight such diseases.

As the 19th Century wore on, the Royal Navy also began
interdicting slavery in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean.

Chasing Freedom Information Sheet - A Brief History of Slavery | Chasing Freedom Exhibition: the Royal Navy and the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade | Current Special Exhibitions | Your Visit | Royal Naval Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

West Africa - Commanders and ships on the West African station, 1808-1869